Jar of Souls (18 page)

* * *

A
fter dinner
, we started in on the dishes. Britta had the leftover food put away, and I was getting some work done on the pans with some warm soapy water. She turned around, and I splashed her with a tiny bit of water.

“Stop that,” she said with a smile. “You got my shirt all wet.”

That hadn’t been what I had in mind, but hey, it worked for me. I waited for her to turn back to me from the fridge, and I splashed her again, this time with a plan in place.

“Damn it, Jackson!” she yelled, and then hit me hard in the chest.

I crumpled from her blow. Damn, that wasn’t manly, was it? As I was moving back, I happened to slip on some of the soapy water, falling to the ground. I let out a groan as my butt impacted the hard tile, and my chest compressed from the fall. I tried to stand up, and my feet slipped again. That was me, Mr. Smooth, not even able to recover from a flirtatious water-splashing event.

Britta realized what she had done by hitting me in the chest, finally remembering all of my bruises. She fell to my side, raining kisses down on me. Ok, so maybe I was pretty smooth. I did get the girl and the kisses, after all. She helped me get up, running her hands under my shirt, her healing magic powering into me. Each one of her touches made me feel as if I was floating on air. I leaned in and kissed her, and she returned it.

She took me by the hand and led me back into her bedroom. Sometimes I still couldn’t believe how lucky I was. Britta stripped off my shirt and pushed me back onto the bed. She straddled my legs and ran her hands over my chest. Her healing magic flooded me. I started to feel better after a minute as that tightness that had been plaguing my chest slowly melted away. I managed to look down and could see that the bruises on my chest had nearly faded away. I pulled Britta down into another kiss, and all I remembered after that was her moving against me, and that every time she did, it felt amazing.

* * *

T
he man
who had killed my parents stood before me. The building around us was on fire. Neither of us moved as a beam crashed down between us. I stared into his eyes. Seeing the fight leave them made me feel good. He knew that he had lost this battle, and the fact that he was going to die was finally setting in.

I wanted to make him suffer, but I felt something pulling me away. There was too much to do, too much to destroy. He snarled in defiance as my magic held him down. I inclined my head just to give him an appraising look. Was this really the man who had taken everything from me? The man who had led me into this new world that had so recently crumbled around me?

With a thought, he disappeared in a spray of blood. Nothing of the man who had killed my parents was left. Something inside of me cried out in triumph; I had finally avenged my family. As I walked from the burning building, it crumbled to the ground.

I turned my gaze toward the city in front of me; I felt a pull toward the center. It was time to make them all pay for what they had done. No one had the power to stand before me now; they would all fall before my will.

Something weird tugged at the edge of my perception. I turned to the right and found myself staring into the dark water of a pond. The flames reflected off of the still water, and I finally saw what I had become. My skin had paled and my eyes glowed with a soft red from under my hood. I still carried my father’s staff, but now I used it to satisfy my every whim. It didn’t matter who was hurt as long as I got what I desired.

I looked over the sleeping city again, the firetruck sirens filling the quiet night with their blaring sound. Killing this man hadn’t made me feel good. The hole inside of me was still there. The look on his face at the end had given me a tiny amount of satisfaction, but that had already burned away.

There were screams for me to stop coming from behind me. Instead, I crouched down and then launched into the air. The wind worked for me now. I flew toward the city. The sleepy inhabitants had no idea what I had in store for them.

* * *

I
woke
up with a silent scream trapped in my throat, and covered in sweat. Britta was awake beside me with a look of shock on her face. I didn’t know if I had screamed out loud or if something else had happened. The look faded from her face, and she leaned into me.

“Jackson, it’s ok. You’re safe.”

“I feel safe when I am with you.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

How could I tell her what I had been doing in my dream, what I had been about to do? “Not really.”

“Ok, just know that if you ever do, that I am here for you.”

“I know,” I said before kissing the top of her head.

“Now get your ass out of my bed so I can change these sweaty sheets.” She hit me with her pillow, and I leaped from the bed.

“All you had to do was ask,” I said with a smile. The dream was already fading away.

W
hen I woke
up for the second time, I felt much better. After we had changed the sheets, sleep hadn’t come easy, but when it did come, it thankfully came without dreams. I had to get to Adam to tell him about what I had seen in my dream, about how I looked. Just the thought of it sent a shiver through my body.

Britta must have felt it because she pulled me back under the covers. “Are you cold?”

“Not anymore.” Oh yeah, Mr. Smooth.

Thank God she didn’t realize I wasn’t good at doing bedroom talk yet. She pulled me closer for a kiss. I felt the warmth of her body wrap around mine, and her healing magic rubbed away the rest of my sore limbs. After she was done healing me, we disentangled and I gave her another kiss. “What do you have planned for today?”

“Well, it’s our off day for classes. I was going to go and hang out with a couple of my girlfriends and take in some yoga.”

All I could think was
yes, yoga
! She was so flexible, but there was power in those limbs. “Sounds good. I am going to hit the gym now, and then I have to see Adam later today.”

“Are you sure you’re up for working out? Just last night you couldn’t even take off your shirt.”

“We found a way around that, didn’t we.” Now maybe I was getting the hang of it.

Britta lowered her eyes for a second before meeting mine. “Yes, we did.”

“Thanks to you I actually feel great. I’m not even sore. Plus you’ve seen me eat; I have to work out to maintain all of this.” I pointed down at my abs.

“Well then, I won’t stop you. See you tonight?”

“You know it!” I gave her a wink, grabbed the rest of my clothes, and headed out.

I didn’t want people to get the wrong impression about my body. Up until a couple years ago, I had always been the chubby kid, but frankly I just got tired of everyone else heaping their shit on the fat kid. I had lost the weight but still carried a little bit of a hang-up about it. That was starting to change, though.

Since coming into the magical world, I almost couldn’t keep weight on. Using magic burned an exorbitant amount of calories; add in a workout with Sarge or with April and damned if I wasn’t eating more than Michael Phelps training for the Olympics. Seriously, I was probably on a steady diet of about twelve thousand calories a day, but I looked as if I just rolled out of a fitness magazine.

It was an interesting change for me, one that I hadn’t thought about much until recently. There was something about being in really good shape that I liked. Not to mention that if I didn’t train this hard, well, let’s just say in my new line of work it could have deadly consequences. Who knows, maybe I was just getting conceited and liked the look now. Either way I wouldn’t be able to stop training anytime soon. So there wasn’t too much to worry about.

The gym was pretty quiet when I walked in. Most of my classmates took their off days seriously. As in, they seriously needed a break from doing any work. Since I was still new to the magical world and needed any edge I could get, I took them a little more seriously. Today would have normally been the day I sparred with April, but I hadn’t seen her since last night when she shot that dirty look at Britta. Seriously, what was her deal? I didn’t see her when I walked in, so I popped in my earbuds and started to rock out while I fired up a high resistance cardio workout on the elliptical. Thirty minutes of this followed by a punishing thirty minutes of interval training. Then it was weights, and time for the gloves and the bag.

I know it sounds like a crazy amount of work, but it was probably half of what those UFC guys did, and they didn’t have the fear of death hanging over their heads. Maybe if they released Marcus I could get some magical work in today. I should probably do it even if they didn’t. Something about using more and more magic built up your reserves slowly over time. That was something I needed to do, but even more, I needed to learn how to pull magic from around me. That was something Adam said I could do. It was a rare gift, something that none of my friends could help me with.

Which was probably why I neglected it, but damn if that wouldn’t have been helpful against Gaston. Once I used my reserves, if I had been able to pull and focus magic from the world around me, we might have had one less problem to deal with. The elliptical rocketed up a few resistance levels, and I lost myself in the music and the sound of my own heavy breathing.

April showed up about thirty minutes later, training bag in hand. Damn, I thought I had gotten out of it for a week. I guess not. She took her training seriously, and well, there weren’t many students who could keep up with her. Technically, I was one of them. She still beat me bloody nine times out of ten, but I was hoping to get that down to seven or eight by the end of the year.

She tossed her bag down in front of the machine and hopped on the elliptical next to me. She started to do a nice slow walk, just loosening her muscles for the punishment she was planning to rain down on me. I’m still not sure what had happened between us, but the fact that she showed up after all gave me hope. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for April. She was one of my closest friends, and as much as I would like to think what she thought about Britta didn’t matter, deep down it really did.

I looked over and found that April was already watching me. Our eyes met, and I gave her a nod. She nodded back and then turned to focus on her own warm-up. We finished at the same time. April had just started to break a sweat, while I, on the other hand, was drenched from head to toe. I moved over to the sparring area where I had dropped my own bag and pulled a towel from the rack on the wall. I took off my shirt and wiped as much of the sweat off as I could before pulling a clean shirt from my bag.

Tossing the towel into the hamper, I turned to find April staring at me. “What?” I said with a little smile.

“Your bruises, they’re all gone.”

“Yeah, I had a little help with that.”

“Britta.” She almost spat the word at me.

“Yep, she took care of them.”

“Well, I guess she is good for something after all.”

I was about to come back with something witty when April started speaking again.

“Let’s see if we can’t give her some more work to do.”

Oh man, I was in for it now; this had losing ten out of ten written all over it. I knew that April didn’t like Britta after what Sarafina had told her, and frankly since Sarafina had proven herself to be an ally, it really made me wonder. But Britta hadn’t done anything to earn my mistrust yet. In fact, if nothing else, we had only grown closer in the last couple of weeks. I mean, she was the first girl I had moved to the next level with. That had to mean something, didn’t it?

April moved with her normal cat-like grace in the ring. It was all I could do to get my training swords up in time to block her attacks. I hadn’t landed a single hit yet, and my arms and legs stung from all of the attacks she made that it threw my defense. If these had been real swords, I would have been dead ten times over.

“What’s up with you today, Jackson? You seem distracted,” she said before launching herself at me in another aggressive volley of attacks. This time I managed to block them all, but again I couldn’t press forward.

“I haven’t been sleeping so well,” I said as we circled each other.

“Maybe it’s the company.” She smirked.

I don’t know what it was, but she had finally pushed my button, and I launched a vicious series of attacks. This time I wasn’t playing around; I was going to make her pay. I pressed her, using my longer arms to take away any space she had to hide. My attacks came faster than I thought possible with the heavy training sticks. Blow after blow she deflected, only stoking my rage to new levels. Finally, after a particular vicious strike, she was out of position. I watched with horror, but I was unable to pull the strike back once it started. My stick broke through her defenses and hit her squarely on the side of the head.

April dropped to the mat, momentarily lifeless. I tossed my training sticks away and pulled her into my arms. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when her eyes flickered open moments later.

She smiled up at me. “Just like I dreamed about it.”

What had she said? Did she dream about me knocking her unconscious or about waking up in my arms? I didn’t know what to say, so I just stared back into her eyes. It was as if for the first time I saw her as more than just my friend. How was it that I hadn’t noticed just how beautiful she was until now? Maybe it was because she spent most of our time together beating the living daylights out of me. I just kept staring at her, and then slowly I moved some of the hair off of her face.

For the first time since I had pulled her into my arms, recognition seemed to come back into her eyes. “I, ah, what happened?”

“I think I won a round.”

She pushed off of me and punched me in the shoulder. “Well, it’s about damn time. I was getting tired of waiting for you to put in the effort.”

She wobbled for a step; I jumped to my feet and held out an arm to steady her. I could already feel the self-loathing building inside of me. Not only had I lashed out in anger, I found a way to hurt someone I cared about. Maybe I was more like the man in my dreams than I thought I could be.

April looked down at my hand on her arm and then into my eyes. I couldn’t hide from her what I was feeling. She was my best friend, and I had hurt her, not only that but now I was thinking of her as more than a friend. How had that even happened? She gave me a sad smile and placed her hand over mine. She let it linger there for a moment. When she removed her hand, I let mine stay for a second before I did the same.

“Guess our workout is over for the day,” I said.

“Yeah, but I’ll still be here on our next off day to whip your lazy ass into shape.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

April slid out of the ring and bent to grab her gear. I couldn’t help but watch her as she left, for the first time seeing her as the amazing woman she was. What in the hell was I going to do? I was with Britta. Loved Britta, at least I thought I did. Damn. When did this relationship thing become so complicated, and why had it taken me so long to realize what was right in front of me?

Maybe my meeting with Adam would be just the distraction I needed to take my mind off of it. I slipped out of the ring and packed my gear. There would be time to worry about what just happened between me and April later. For now I needed to focus on the task at hand. That was Gaston. I wanted to know just why he was so important, not to mention how in the hell he had become so powerful. The most important question was how did we stop him?

* * *

T
his time
when I got to Adam’s office, the door was already open as if he had been expecting me. He smiled as I sat down, and it was hard for me not to return it. Adam had the bearing of a friendly grandfather most of the time. The only time I had truly seen him angry was when he thought April had been taken by the Fallen. That was when I started to understand why he ran things. People respected him, and he had the power to back up his decisions.

“I am happy you came early, Jackson. It will give us some time to talk before the inspector gets here,” he said while putting down a book on his desk.

“I was hoping to catch you alone; I had another dream last night.” He made a motion in the air with his hand, telling me to go on. “It wasn’t the same as before. Well, it kind of was. I killed the man who killed my parents, but this time I saw my reflection.”

“What did it look like?”

“I looked a lot like myself but different. My eyes were glowing red, and my skin had grown pale. I had a hood on, so I couldn’t see the rest.”

“How did you feel when you saw it?”

“Disgusted and powerful. At the end of my dream, I flew toward the center of a city. I had a feeling that whatever was going to happen next wouldn’t be good.”

“Your dreams are concerning, Jackson, but I have faith that when the time comes, you will make the right choices. Always remember we are here for you, and that many wrongs can be set right.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“One more question, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” This time it was my turn to tell him to keep going. “These dreams seem to center around the deaths of your adopted parents, by getting revenge on their killer.”

Tell me something I don’t know
, I thought.

“You haven’t talked about them with me since you have been here. Have you had a chance to talk with anyone about their deaths, about how you feel?”

I had to seriously think about it. I had told Marcus, April, and Britta about it, but we hadn’t really spoken about it in depth. They could tell I wanted space and I didn’t want to relive the gory details. Since then, I had thrown myself into my training and the missions I had been assigned. I hadn’t let myself even think about it. Was I grieving? Had I even grieved for them? I didn’t even know what happened to their bodies. Did they get buried somewhere or cremated? I guess I had more questions about it than I cared to admit.